Albert Leo Schlageter was a German officer who did not stop fighting when the. War ended. Enraged at the Weimar Republicans, who to his mind were accepting the Versailles Treaty lying down. Albert Schlageter joined a guerrilla band known as the Baltikum troops. When these disbanded he moved to Dusseldorf. In 1923 when the French began to exploit the Ruhr coal mines for German failure to meet Reparations payments. Albert Leo Schlageter and his friends went to work. Railroad bridges were bombed, canal locks smashed, dams destroyed—the French got little benefit from their seized coal. On May 8 Schlageter and several associates were caught and tried by French court-martial. Despite Berlin protests, on May 28 he was shot dead by French soldiers.
Whether or not Albert Schlageter ever heard of the early Nazi groups, Hitlerites have long held him as their particular hero. A 90-ft. cross has been erected on the spot where he fell. Month ago Chancellor Hitler announced that the roth anniversary of his execution would be a national fête. The world worried over the dynamite the celebration might set off.
Meanwhile came Adolf Hitler’s Reichstag speech and the sharp veering of German policy peacewards. Some 300,000 men massed in the execution field by the great Schlageter cross last week, the greatest single crowd Western Germany has ever seen, but the ceremony was mild as ginger beer. By advice of counsel Adolf Hitler and former Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm stayed away. Wilhelm of Doom sent a wreath, but the only Hohenzollern representative was fat Prince August Wilhelm (“Auwi”) in his Nazi uniform. Chief oration came from bull-necked Wilhelm Hermann Goring who rattled no sabres, contented himself with saying:
“Schlageter was no ‘hurrah’ patriot. He wanted no war. He wanted peace as all Germany wants peace. But he was ready to defend his home and the peace of his people. He became a fighter because this peace had been broken.”
It was further emphasized that Hero Schlageter was a foe of Marxism as much as of France.
France took no official notice, but in Paris a file of wounded veterans clumped up the Champs Elysees to dip their flags over the tomb of the Unknown Soldier in honor of their comrades who died during the Ruhr occupation. A third demonstration took place two days earlier when a crowd of nearly 1,000 Jews & Communists rioted at a Brooklyn quayside, waiting to boo Hans Weidemann and Gotthold Schneider, Hitler’s not particularly welcome envoys to the Chicago World’s Fair. Dozens of heads were cracked, 13 rioters arrested.
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